A piece of the past - Paddle Wheel assembly

[Marie Hass]

Sternwheelers are a big piece of history on the Ohio River.

When shooting machinery, does one present a closeup of a part? The whole assembly? I have closeups of this assembly also that I can post. Your c&c is valuable to me, so please have at it.



I liked the repeating half circular arcs in this one.

[lenelg]

"When shooting machinery, does one present a closeup of a part? The whole assembly?"

Depends entirely on what you want to acheive with your photo..

Detail shots of old machinery can often make nice, almost abstract, visual compositions. Usually more so than overall photos.

On the other hand, as a model builder/historian, I often shoot both details and overall shots to document a piece of machinery, in order to understand better how it was put together and supposed to function.

[MiniChris]

I think either from Lennart's position or that of an abstractionist, minimizing background clutter is essential. Even with a very tight crop, there is so much background activity, one would have to spend considerable time in PP to glean a decent shot. It is also a tad underexposed and a bit soft on the focus.

It is an interesting piece of the past and am assuming part of a paddle wheeler. I wonder if it is close to the water where it could have been shot more in context.

[Geoff F]

And sometimes, it is worth including an indication of size; even one shot with somebody standing alongside the machinery would do.

As previously mentioned, you aren't restricted to just one photo so take a few and try to tell the whole story.

[Marie Hass]

you aren't restricted to just one photo so take a few and try to tell the whole story.

Geoff, this is true. I did take some detail shots. I added one to my original post. Thank you for the encouragement.

tad underexposed and a bit soft on the focus.

Sigh, this is also true, Chris. Shutter speed was under 100 and I am holding a big honking lens. Thank you for your astute comments.

Detail shots of old machinery can often make nice, almost abstract, visual compositions.

Lennert, thank you for commenting. For a gal that used to only take pictures of flowers, bugs and bees, this is a new field for me.

[lenelg]

I really like what you did with the detail shot! Maybe a little less grain and a little more overall contrast between the rusted iron and the bleached wood parts?

[MiniChris]

Also, just to continue the abstractedness of the work, I'd go ahead and clone out or significantly darken the background bricks as now, they have no context to anything.